Justice
by Cygnea
Summary: [Bleach xover][Usagi and Tosen] Her admiration proved to be ill founded.


**Justice**  
**Theme:** #90 (disillusioned; reveal; disappointment)  
Written for the LJ community 30 houshin  
**Disclaimer: **I do not own or claim to own any of the characters mentioned below or the series from which they originated.  
**Warning:** Title subject to change.  
**Characters:** Usagi + Tōsen  
**Updated:** October 16th, changed the last word

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Usagi didn't remember life before the Soul Society. 

She wasn't sure how she ended up there, though she supposed like everyone else she must have died. She got a little sad thinking about it; on the one hand she certainly didn't want to remember dying, but on the other she wondered if she had left any family behind, anyone who missed her or she would have missed if she could recall their names and faces.

For a while she had searched for anyone who might recognize her but the Rukongai was so huge that it seemed a hopeless task and eventually she had been convinced to start living her new life.

She died young. She didn't know her exact age when it happened – looks were deceiving here – but years and years had passed and she still looked much the same as when she arrived. She could stare in a mirror for hours and swear that time had stood still.

She knew it hadn't, though. The family that had taken her in, a loving mismatch that had come together out of loneliness, had kept her busy and, when she started to show signs of having spiritual power, convinced her to enroll the Shinigami Academy.

It hadn't been easy to work up the courage to actually enter, but that first hurdle later proved to be the easiest part. There were so many things to learn, so much training to do that when she came home she never wanted to go back. She wondered how disappointed everyone would be if she failed or pulled out and if they'd hate her for not trying hard enough.

She imagined being rejected by her family and the terrible image kept her up late at night.

There were a hundred thousand places to find solitude in Soul Society and she tried her best to explore them all, often going off on her own when the pressures of her training became too much for her.

She was sulking on day, leaning against a tree and wondering if she should just become a baker, when a man walked by her, intent on a nearby grave.

Usagi glanced after him.The sight of him, standing before that grave so solemnly in the outfit of a Captain, made all of her worries seem small and ridiculous.

There were people worse off than her. Dead people, for one (deader people? She had never asked what happed to anyone who died here), their friends and family who missed them, the residents of the lower districts who would give anything to be where she was and have the chances she had. Sitting around moping wasn't going to accomplish anything. His friend had probably been another shinigmai and here she was dishonoring his or her memory by complaining that the training was too hard.

She sighed and rested her face on her arms.

The crunching of grass let her know he was walking towards her and she glanced up as he walked away, pace as smooth and measured as when he had approached.

She recognized him now – Tōsen, the Captain of the Ninth Division, and her role model.

Usagi didn't aim for his Division. She knew better than that; fighting wasn't her strongpoint. She leaned towards the Fourth, so specialized in healing wounds instead of inflicting them. Her idol should have been Unohana, the calm captain who lead them and the woman her subordinates looked up to.

Instead, however, it was Tōsen. He spoke of fighting for justice and taking the path with the least bloodshed, and something deep inside of her responded to that. She felt almost as if she had been born to hear those words, born to fight for justice and defend those who couldn't help themselves, to dedicate her life to helping others. Love and justice, she laughed to herself one day.

A person who strived towards such a goal was someone she longed to be like.

He didn't know she existed. Why would he? Nevertheless, she continued to hold his words in her heart and strengthened her resolve. The training didn't get easier or go by any smoother, but she swallowed her complaints and reminded herself she couldn't help anyone by whining. She suffered her bruises with her mouth closed and took her scolding quietly.

Eventually, she found herself accepted in the Fourth Division. She didn't make a seat, true, but all that mattered was that she had made it, and for days she felt like she was walking though a dream, barely connected to the real world. Everything seemed brighter and more wonderful, and she'd improve her skills until she could make a difference.

She fought hollows on in the living world and sent them where they belonged, keeping the delicate balance between the world of the living and the dead, and healed her companions when they were injured. Her skills in that area brought her some attention and she tried to live up to it, not to let down anyone who commented on how well she was suiting her position.

She made vague plans for the future, silly ideas but nothing concrete. Everything was too new for her to think too far ahead and she had never been good at setting long term goals. Her entire travel through the Academy had been aiming at one particular thing at a time; getting to this point had stretched her more than she thought possible.

Then, one day, the intruders came.

She didn't fight any of them. It seemed she always arrived at the scene of a battle a moment too late, quick enough to see the damage but not those who caused it.

In the end, though, after days of tension and confusion, everything came to Sōkyoku Hill. She wasn't there; her low position kept her away but by the end of the day the details of the event were all over the city: the Sōkyoku had been destroyed, Rukia saved and the truth revealed.

The goal that she had strived for so desperately proved false, a cracked mirror image. Tōsen had sided with the hollows, with Aizen and his twisted sense of what was right and wrong, and the road that he had forged and she tried to follow fell apart beneath her feet.

He didn't know how his actions had affected her, of course. She was simply a lowly shinigami of another division, too young and inexperienced to make a name for herself, another nameless face in the crowd. Perhaps even if he had known, he wouldn't have cared – Captain Komamura vowed to bring Tōsen back with his own hands and show him the true path, but Tōsen held firm to the idea that he was doing what was best.

Later, after the initial disbelief had worn off, Usagi found herself laying near the grave she had spied him visiting so long ago and wondering who had been buried in it. Would he or she have approved of Tōsen's actions and the reasoning behind them?

She took a few deep breaths, trying and failing to calm her thoughts. Her zanpakutō lay just out of reach and she eyed it tiredly, wondering if she'd ever want to pick it up again.

_Love and justice._

She closed her eyes and sighed.

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Any and all comments are appreciated. 


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